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The Public School System 
of Butte^ Montana 



Historical, Descriptive and Illustrative 



By ROBERT G. YOUNG 




Published by Order of the Board of Education 
Nineteen Hundred and Four 



IN A CKNO WLEDGMENT 



Acknowledgments are due Mr. 
J. R. Wharton of the Butte Elec- 
tric Transit Company for the use 
of cuts of the Gardens, and their 
environments, that have been used 
in this booklet; also to pupils of 
the public schools of the city, -who 
made the drawings of initial let- 
ters and head and tail pieces found 
on the succeeding pages. — R. G. Y. 




R. I<. Clinton 
C. H. tane 



BOARD OF EDUCATION 

I'. J. ISiopliy 

W. McC. Wliite, Fre<. 

K. A. l-"ord 



H. A. Gallwey 
E. B. Weirick 



Historical and Descriptive Sketch of the 

Public School System of Butte 

and Its Environments* 




EARLY HISTORY 

T WILL doubtless be a matter of some interest to 
those wht) have watched the development in com- 
mon school education in Montana, and especially in 
Butte, to know that the first public school on the 
west side of the Rocky Mountains, and probably 
one of the very first in the territory to be main- 
tained from a public school fund, was established in 
September, 1866, at Deer Lodge, the county seat of 
Deer Lodge county. At this time Deer Lodge 
county included what is now Silver Bow county. 
The school house, a cut of which through the 
courtesy of George Irvin, our present postmaster, we give on another 
page, was a little log structure with a dirt roof — a very common type 
of architecture in those early days. The school was presided over by 
Dallas P. Newcommer, who had an enrollment of fourteen pupils, 
several of whom are still residents of the state. Among them is Mr. 
Nathaniel Evans, now a prosperous business man and a brother of 
judge John Evans of Missoula. 

• The membership of the school was about evenly divided between 
whites and half breeds, a fact which, because of the different com- 
plexions, caused this and other similarly composed schools to be known 
as "checker board" schools. 

In the winter of the same year the first public school was opened 
in what is now the City of Butte. Colonel J. G. Wood, who will be 
remembered by many of the old timers as a splendid type of western 
manhood, was the teacher, and an excellent one he was. He taught, 
among other branches, calisthenics, music, phonetic spelling, and 



presented his work by methods that were effective in securing the best 
of results. The enrollment in the first school of the district was be- 
tween ten and fifteen pupils. 

The school house was a log cabin on what is now East Broadway. 
Seats were arranged around the wall and the stove was located in the 
center of the room. A bench was placed near the stove for the pupils 
to occupy when they were cold, and many a day during that cold 
winter it was occupied most of the time. Books were not free then as 
today, but were furnished by the parents while the teacher was paid 
by subscription. Books were obtained from Virginia City at a very 
great expense as will be realized when it is known that postage be- 
tween Virginia City and Butte was 50 cents a letter. Wood was 
donated by the patrons of the school who took turns at hauling it and 
having it cut. 

Mr. Wood taught two other terms, '67 and '68. The school was 
taught at this time in a frame building located where the Beaver block 
now stands and was then known as Oatman hall. Every Saturday 
evening a spelling school was held in this hall and it was well attended 
by the school children and also by the miners of the camp. A great 
deal of enthusiasm was manifested in these old fashioned spelling 
matches. There can be no doubt that in these early davs Butte was 
a typical, wild, western place, and yet it will be interesting to know 
that the spelling book and dictionary were as common in the miner's 
cabin as were the Sharp's rifle and the Colt's revolver. 

In 1869 a school was taught by a Mr. Brown, commonly known as 
"Commissary Brown," who was succeeded by Thomas Porter, who 
taught two terms, '71 and '72, each term continuing for a period of 
three months. A Mrs. Cline taught one term in 1872. and following 




12 




' I. :/.. 
her Miss Ella Wright, who was afterwards Mrs. James H. Mills of 

Deer Lodge, taught three months in 1873. Mr. Pat Talent taught in 

1874 in a little log school house on the lot where the splendid public 

library is now located on the corner of Broadway and Academy 

streets. 

For ten years the camp did not grow beyond the point where one 
school was sufficient to meet its needs, and so, as late as 1875, one 
teacher, J. H. Saville, was teaching the only school held in the district. 

The first trustees of the organized school district were David 
Meiklejohn, Joe Ramsdell and William W. Thomas. Among the first 
pupils in the old school of Butte in '66 were young ladies who after- 
wards became Mrs. A. W. Barnard, Mrs. James Talbott, Mrs. Roach, 
Mrs. Noyes, Mrs. Sisley, and Mrs. Brown. Frank and Clayton Rams- 
dell and some others whose names have been forgotten were also mem- 
bers of this school. 

GROWTH OF THE SCHOOLS 

From the year 1876, the camp began to grow and with it the school 
system till, in 1886, ten years late", the population of the camp had 
increased to ten thousand, and the schools to a system in which twenty 
teachers were employed. Previous to this time the schools had had 
but little in the way of systematic organization though much eflFective 
teaching had been done under the direction of R. B. Hassell in '80, 
'81 and '82, by E. B. Howell in '83 and '84, and by J. F. Davies in 
'85 and '86. 

ORGANIZATION OF THE HIGH SCHOOL 

About this time, 1884 or 1885, the high school was organized, and, 
in 1886, the first pupil, P. W. Irvin, was graduated from it, the exer- 

15 



cises being held in Miner's Union hall, at which time R. B. Smith, 
afterwards governor of the state, and now a resident of the city, made 
ihe address which was the main feature of the commencement exer- 
cises. 

Since that time the growth of the city, and with it the growth of 
the schools, has been the pride and wonder not only of the people who 
have resided in the district, but of the whole state as well. This can 
better be shown by taking a bird's eye view of the school system as 
it is at the present time. 




PRESENT MAGNITUDE OF THE SYSTEM 




U ACCOMMODATE the schools of the district 

T today (1904), there are required twenty build- 

ings, having in the aggregate 190 rooms, and a 
seating capacity of over 8,000. A conservative 
estimate of the valuation of the school property is 
here given : Sites, $80,900 ; furniture, $50,600 ; 
buildings and heating plants, $680,000; text- 
books, (owned by the city) $20,000; apparatus. 
$4,500; libraries, $5,000, making a total valuation 
of $849,000. 

To properly heat, clean, and care for those 
buildings requires the labor of 26 janitors, while 
the supervision and instruction of the army of 
over 7,500 children who daily attend these schools, requires 200 teach- 
ers. To conduct the business connected with the public school system 
of the city, requires, therefore, the services of over 230 persons. 

The following tabulation shows the number of school buildings, 
the number of rooms, and the total number of sittings in the district : 



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Henry M. Hart 

Ada Madden Mary Moran 

Atlanta Birdseye Winnie Squires Miss H. I". Downey 

B. C. Hastings T. E. Spiers 

l,izzie Pettibone Mary K. Kyan Kittic- O'Donnell 

Mary MuUins Mamie Burt 

Lizzie Boland Win. t,. Soper Nettie E. ODonnell 



As we have already stated, this g^reat system has grown up chiefly 
during the past seventeen years from its small proportions in 1886. 
The growth from year to year may be seen from the following state- 
ment: 

GROWTH OF CITY SCHOOL SYSTEM SINCE 1886 



Year. 


Teachers. 


Enrollment. 


(School Age), 


. Increas 


1886-87 


20 


196 


.... 




1887-88 


24 


1967 


2934 




1888-89 


28 


2157 


3292 


358 


1889-90 


29 


2201 


3881 


589 


1890-91 


36 


2696 


4400 


510 


1891-92 


48 


3045 


4680 


280 


1 892-D ec. 


77 


3447 ■ 


5037 


357 


1893-Dec. 


80 


3624 


5145 


108 


1894-Dec. 


87 


3794 


5325 


178 


1895-Dec. 


93 


3800 


5685 


362 


1896-Dec. 


98 


4019 


6354 


669 


1897-Dec. 


112 


4855 


6894 


540 


1898-Dec. 


121 


5547 


8447 


1553 


1899-Dec. 


151 


6748 


9347 


900 


1900-Dec. 


166 


7007 


10600 


1253 


1901-02 


180 


7320 


1 1 247 


647 


1902-03 


185 


7583 


1 1 249 


2 


1903-04 


200 


7980 


10923 


-326 



SUPERINTENDENTS 
Since 1880 the following persons have held the position of super- 
intendent : R. B. Hassell, E. B. Howell, J- F- Davies, J. R. Russell, 
J. A. Riley, J. P. Hendricks, F. L. Kern, and R. G. Young, the present 
incumbent. It should be noted, however, that the term superintendent 
was not used in Montana previous to the administration of J. P. Hen- 
dricks. 

EQUIPMENT 

There are few school systems, east or west, that are more perfect 
in their equipment than are the schools of Butte. The buildings are 
large, modern, generally heated by steam, well ventilated, and are sup- 

26 



plied with the best furniture than can be procured. The equipment 
inckides maps, globes, charts, supplemental reading, primary and 
kindergarten material, etc. Books, pencils, pens, etc., are furnished 
free to the pupils, while each ward school is provided with encyclo- 
paedias, and such reference books as are necessary to make the work 
in the grades effective. Special teachers are employed to supervise 
and direct the work in music and drawing. 



and 
and 



GENERAL INFORMATION 

HE SCHOOLS are organized on the same general 
plan as are most of the progressive schools of the 
east. The promotions in both the grades and the 
high school occur semi-annually, in June and Janu- 
ary. It is the policy of the present administration to 
give the schools a reputation for rational organiza- 
tion, a high order of discipline, and a most rigid 
thoroughness in teaching the branches necessary to 
a broad and practical education, rather than by the 
introduction of novelties that appeal to the fancy 

whose tendencies are to give an apparant rather than a real culture 

discipline. 

There are, at the present time, no kindergarten schools connected 





with the school system, though much kindergarten work is done in the 
primary grades in connection with the various Hnes of construction 
work. 

The course of study is modern and covers all the work usually 
included in the best graded school systems. 

The school year covers a period of ten months which, however, 
includes the county teachers' institute and two weeks vacation. The 
standard of qualification required of teachers is high, but, on the 
other hands, the schedule of salaries is as liberal as is found in most 
cities of the country. Teachers are paid for the ten months at the 
following rates : First and eighth grades, $90.00 per month ; second 
and seventh grades, inclusive, $80.00 per month ; ward principals from 
$100.00 to $130.00 per month; supervisors of music and drawing, 
$105.00 per month; teachers in the high school — principal, $210.00, 
assistants from $100.00 to $125.00 per month. 



THE HIGH SCHOOL 



THE HIGH SCHOOL is one of the largest and most 
thoroughly equipped to be found in the great 
Northwest. As we have already stated, it was 
organized in 1884 or '85 and in 1886 the first pupil 
graduated from it. Since that time the high 
school has graduated 435 pupils, including those 
in the present senior class. During the eighteen 
years since 1886 there has been a class to gradu- 
ate each year save that of 1887. Of the eighteen 
classes that have gone out from the high school, 
the class of 1899 was the largest, having in it 
fifty-seven members. The average for the dif- 
ferent years is 24. 

The science department is large, occupying 
four commodious rooms consisting of a lecture 
and demonstration room seated in amphitheatre 
style and containing a thoroughly equipped 
demonstration table and cases for specimens and materials. The physi- 
cal and biological room is lighted on two sides and is equipped with 



32 




two Crowell cabinets, a large amount of standard physical apparatus, 
including twelve compound microscopes, a fine barometer, and in fact 
all the apparatus usually found in a first class physical and biological 
laboratory. 

The chemical laboratory is one of the finest and most complete in 
the entire country. The tables are of fine quarter-sawed oak provided 
with the necessary drawers and cupboards, while the tops and shelves 
for re-agent bottles are of French plate glass, the latter supported by 
frame work of solid copper. The laboratory is provided with gas and 
water by being connected with the gas and water systems of the city. 
The facilities are ample to provide for a class of thirty or forty pupils. 
Connected with the ■ chemical laboratory is a large, dark room for 
storing supplies. Tables, a system of hoods with gas heaters, cases for 
storing specimens and apparatus, complete this excellent and neces- 
sary department of the high school. 

The library is one of the most attractive and useful departments of 
the school. It is located in a large, beautifully furnished room, lighted 
from two sides and is furnished with library tables of uniform design. 
The shelving consists of the Wernicke adjustable cases finished in 
golden oak. Nearly, or quite, 3,000 volumes of carefully selected 
books are here accessible to the pupils of the high school. The library 
is strictly a collection of reference books, none of which are taken out 
for home reading, except in special instances. All books are cata- 
logued according to the Dewey system. The department is in charge 
of a competent librarian who devotes her entire time to caring for the 







The Argonatcts 



books, assisting the 
pupils in looking 
up references, and 
directing them in 
their special and 
miscellaneous read- 
ing. 

The art depart- 
ment is modern and up to 
date, and is equipped with 
all necessary appliances for doing ef- 
fective work. Its courses include free- 
hand, perspective and mechanical draw- 
ing; work in charcoal, water color and 
pyrography ; and practical and artistic designing. 

The commercial department, with over 200 pupils enrolled, is 
located in ample quarters and includes in its course of study, English, 
mathematics, book-keeping, business practice, commercial law, type- 
writing and stenography. 

The high school ofifers four courses of study : English, scientific, 
classical, and commercial, in each of which quite a line of selections 
are permitted after completing the first year. 

All courses in the high school cover a period of four years and 
are so broad in their scope and so rigid in their requirements as to the 
qualitv and character of the work done, and so in harmonv with the 
highest standards demanded of secondary schools, that the high school 
is placed on the accredited lists of the following colleges and universi- 



ties : The state universities of Michigan, Illinois. California, Montana, 
Wisconsin, and Minnesota, also, Leland Stanford Jr., Northwestern 
University, Cornell University and several others. 

The enrollment and the number of graduates since 1886 is shown 
in the following exhibit : 



ENROLLMENT. 




GRADUATES. 




Tears. 


Girls. 


Boys. 


Total. 


Year. 


Girls. 


Boys. 


Total. 


1886 





I 


I 


1886 





I 


I 


1888 


4 


2 


6 


1888 


4 


2 


6 


1889 


4 


3 


7 


1889 


4 


3 


7 


I 889- I 890 


32 


^7 


59 


1890 


5 


6 


II 


I 890- I 89 I 


38 


31 


69 


189I 


4 


5 


9 


189I-1892 


76 


47 


123 


1892 


5 


5 


10 


I 892- I 893 


102 


65 


167 


1893 


12 


3 


15 


I 893- I 894 


121 


73 


198 


1894 


15 


8 


23 


1894- I 895 


136 


99 


235 


1895 


22 


7 


29 


1895-1896 


175 


99 


274 


1896 


12 


19 


3T 


I 896- I 897 


208 


124 


332 


1897 


25 


10 


35 


I 897- I 898 


221 


136 


357 


1898 


19 


13 


32 


I 898- I 899 


293 


138 


431 


1899 


42 


14 


56 


I 900- I 90 I 


280 


180 


460 


1900 


22 


8 


30 


I9OI-I902 


285 


189 


474 


I90I 


16 


II 


27 


I 902- I 903 


308 


200 


508 


1902 


24 


8 


Z'2 


I 903- I 904 


348 


220 


568 


1903 


28 


13 


41 










1904 


29 


16 


45 




Observing the Zoological Collection 
40 




COMPULSORY EDUCATION 

N 1902 the legislature enacted a very stringent compul- 

Isory education law in which it provided that all 
cities of 25,000 population and over should establish 
and maintain an Industrial School for the reception 
'^ and detention of all pupils of compulsory school age, 
who refuse or neglect to attend the public or private 
schools of the district. 

In accordance with the provisions of this act. 
the Board of Education of the city of Butte estab- 
lished an Industrial School which was opened for 
the reception of pupils on Nov. 2, 1903. In this institution pupils are 
housed, boarded, and taught for the period of their commitment. The 
school is provided with gymnasium, manual training department, 
school rooms, and all necessary appliances looking to the health, 
comfort, intellectual and physical training, together with that strict 
but rational discipline necessary to the reformation of youthful 
offenders. 

Though the school has been established less than a year, its effect 
in the city in the decrease of truancy and the improvement in the con- 
duct of troublesome pupils attending the ward schools, has been little 
less than marvelous. Pupils who have been chronic truants and 
sources of great annoyance to their teachers are regular in their attend- 
ance and respectful to their teachers. The experiment, but really it 
is not an experiment, shows that regular attendance at school can be 




43 



j . i a| y » , ' ''^ y 




secured, that truants can be taken from the street and its pernicious 
environment and brought under the wholesome influence of the culture 
and discipline of the public schools. 

The Butte Industrial School has accommodations for about forty 
pupils. It is believed this will be ample for the needs of the city, but 
if not the Board will promptly enlarge the building. 

So far as the writer knows, this is the only school of its kind west 
of Chicago, but in the eastern states such schools are not uncommon. 

The industrial, parental or truant school as it is called in dif- 
ferent states, is an intermediate step between the ward school and the 
reform school. It is for children, who, by reason of their truancy 
and incorrigibility, are headed toward lives of criminality, but who 
have not yet entered upon a criminal career. Its mission is to reform 
the wayward, to save the lost, and to serve as a constant reminder to 
others that the authorities will not permit the children of the district 
to grow up in idleness, ignorance, and crime. 



'M^ The City of Butte ^^' 




aggregation of 
comparatively 



UTTE, as a city, is unique in that it has no rivals ; 
it imitates no other municipality ; it leads all other 
cities in those distinguishing characteristics which 
have made its name a household word where men 
think and speak of strenuous activities, and gigan- 
tic business enterprises, 

God has created but one Yosemite, one Mat- 
terhorn, and one Niagara Falls; man has built but 
one London, one Venice and one Butte. London 
is known throughout the world as the great cen- 
ter of Anglo Saxon influence, Venice for its fair 
skies and liquid streets, and Butte as the seat of 
the greatest mining enterprises ever developed 
within the limits of one industrial center. 

Butte, like the city of Constantinople, is an 
municipalities. The city proper is an incorporation of 
small area, but surrounding it and separated from it 



46 



only by the lines of the surveyor are Centerville, Walkerville, North 
Walkerville, Meaderville, East Butte, South Butte, Williamsburg, Sil- 
ver Bow Park, and West Butte. These are all joined into one com- 
pact city by a peculiar oneness of occupation, similarity of purpose, 
and a loyalty to the common interests of the community. They are 
joined together, too, by those institutions of modern city life such as 
systems of telephones, rapid transit, sewerage, messenger service, 
electric light, paved streets, waterworks, firm alarm system, a paid fire 
department, and in fact all those modern organized conveniences which 
are desirable and necessary to a modern, progressive, and prosperous 
city. 

POPULATION 

Butte, as reported in the last national census returns, is a city of 
between 32,000 and 33,000 population, but as it stands, surrounded 
by its many suburbs, on the southern, sunny slope of the Rocky Moun- 
tains, as it is known throughout Montana and the great Northwest, 
it is a strenuous, pulsing city of between 50,000 and 60,000 of the keen- 
est, most active, and most self-reliant people to be found between the 
Atlantic and the Pacific oceans. 

As we have intimated, the city lies on the southern and western 
slope of the mountains and has an altitude varying from 5,400 feet on 
the south where it reaches out into the valley, to 6,600 feet at North 
Walkerville, fully two miles up the continuous slope of the barren, 
rock-ribbed mountain. 





if 



r- 



CLIMATE 

The much mahgned cHmate is, in fact, unsurpassed in a section 
of the country famed for its deUghtful summers and its mild and in- 
vigorating winters. Barring its sulphur smoke for some thirty or 
sixty days of the winter, there is no place where the sunshine is more 
genial or the air more invigorating than in this "Pittsburg of the 
West." There are few cities where the health conditions are better 
or where people enjoy a greater degree of vital and physical energy. 

PAST AND PRESENT 

Twenty years ago Butte was a typical western mining camp, but 
out of that camp with its untold wealth in gold, silver, and copper, with 
its crude machinery and rude dwellings, with its throngs of surging, 
determined, and enterprising humanity has grown up a city of splendid 
homes, palatial business blocks, and imposing public buildings. And 
vet the city is unique in that by the side of the modem business block 
or handsome dwelling stands the little, old, log cabin with its single 
door and window, and dirt roof — a striking reminder of the good, old 
days when only men with strong arms and brave hearts ventured inta 
this then far away country in search of gold and adventure. 

INDUSTRIES 

As Washington is a city of politics, Lynn of factories, and New 
York of commerce, so Butte is a city of mines and mining. Its first 
mines were placer diggings yielding gold ; then came a period in which 
silver was the chief mineral output, and later copper came to be the 
principal product of its mines which have grown richer and richer as 
ihey have been more fully developed. During these years untold 
millions have been taken from the very ground upon which the city 
now stands. 





52 




. • Scene in Colimihia (jardeiis 

The famous Anaconda Hill in the eastern part of the city is prob- 
ably the richest piece of mining ground that has ever been developed. 
It is honey-combed in every direction ; all over its bleak, barren, and 
rocky surface are innumerable gigantic hoists ; hundreds and hundreds 
of stacks standing like grim sentinels pour out dense volumes of black, 
sulphurous smoke telling of the unceasing activity going on far below 
where there is no night nor day, no siunmer nor winter, but where the 
glimmer of the miner's lamp, the sound of his pick, and the dull rumble 
of the ore car are seen and heard on and on, like Tennyson's brook, 
forever. 

Not onlv in and about the wonderful hill of which we have 
spoken, but in every part of the city are mines where innumerable tun- 
nels and cross cuts ramify in every direction beneath the business 
thoroughfares. One may see on one corner a splendid business block 
or modern home and on another corner of the same block a grim un- 
sightly hoist standing over a shaft out of which the ore is being de- 
livered and borne away on immense wagons, or by cars on the electric 
car line to the numerous smelters located on the outskirts of the city. 

It has been said there are two Buttes, one above ground, one under 
the ground, and, as the army of miners and smeltermen work in three 
shifts of eight hours each, this is particularly true, for there is no time 
in the day or night when the city is not alive with men standing about 
the street corners or hurrying to or from their places of business or 
labor. As a result of this ceaseless activity, eating houses, saloons, 
and other resorts are always open giving rise to the saying that "Butte 
knows neither day nor night." 



55 




"fc; 




K^ 



w 



^^^^^H|^?7v 


1 


i 


•w-^ 


1 




1 


1 


B^^B . .'.^.^v^mjIhHHIHBBP 


jss.' 








W: 


:- r,.=aB 


■K£ 












~ri 
























m 


HI 












Ik 




.^* 


■ 


n \ 



LIGHT AND WATER 

The city is lighted by electricity. The street cars, running over 
twenty-six miles of track, and carrying annually more than five million 
passengers, are run by the same wonder-working agency while much 
of the vast machinery used in the mines and smelters are kept in cease- 
less motion by mighty currents of this same invisible power brought to 
the city over a system of wires from a distance of seventy-five miles 
or more. 

No city in the west is better supplied with water either as to 
quality or quantity than is Butte. Its supply is brought chiefly from 
the Big Hole river twenty-seven miles to the south. In its journey 
it flows through huge mains which pass over the main divide of the 
Rockv Mountains and is finally emptied into a spacious reservoir high 
upon the mountain (5,960 ft.) from which it is distributed through a 
net work of sixty miles of mains to every home, business block, mine, 
and smelter in and about the city. 

It mav be of interest to know that from an altitude of 5,400 feet 
where the water is taken from the Big Hole river it is pumped by an 
enormous 600 horse power engine to a reservoir located at an altitude 
of 6,176 feet from which it is carried to the reservoir in the city as 
before stated. 

PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS 

Among its public institutions are the free public library containing 
over 30,000 volumes, two large and modern hospitals, a home for the 
reception and care of friendless children, an imposing city hall, 
large and elegantly equipped theatres, sixteen modern and commodious 
public school buildings, innumerable churches representing all the 
principal religious societies, the state school of mines, elegant and 




luxuriously furnished temples for the accommodation of the principal 
secret and fraternal societies, and last but not least the Columbia Gar- 
dens, that delightful pleasure resort which through the liberality and 
courtesy of Senator W. A. Clark is open to the citizens of Butte and 
the state from the first of May till the first of November. 

The daily and other papers of the city are among the very best to 
be found in the country. They are metropolitan in character, bold 
and outspoken in the expression of opinion and in every way are con- 
ducted with an enterprise and vigor that leaves but little to be desired. 

ITS PEOPLE 

But as in every city that has succeeded in stamping its individu- 
ality, upon the country at large, it is in the people that we find the great- 
est center of interest. And first of all they are truly cosmopolitan. 
They have come from every state in the Union, and from nearly every 
country on the face of the earth bringing with them an aggressive in- 
dustry, unsatisfied ambitions, an eager desire to better their condition, 
and withal a pluck and energy that laugh at impossibilities and that 
will not recognize such a word as failure. 

In the old home from which they came, the long hours of spirit- 
less toil were equalled only by the meager wages they received and the 
cruel economy necessary to provide against absolute want. It is little 
wonder that on coming to this country where the hours of labor admit 
of adequate rest and recreation and where the wages paid, by com- 
parison, assume a princely proportion, that their daily activities take 
on an intensitv that is known in few other localities. 




Scene in Columbia Gardens 



61 




a 2 



5'- Q 

^ O 

^ M 



It has been said that the Butte laboring man is the best paid, the 
best fed, and the best dressed of his class to be found in the world. 
However this may be, those who know recognize him to be a strong, 
intelligent, and fearless son of toil who lives well, dresses well, works 
hard, lives hi a comfortable home and has a good time when "off 
shift." We speak here of the t3^pical laboring man — him of "the 
bucket brigade," for it must be understood that Butte has her share of 
the shiftless, of the loafer, of the dead beat, and possibly more than 
her just share of the criminal class. It is, however, the strong, sub- 
stantial, middle class of society — the knights of labor — that give the 
real tone and character to a community, and it is this class that so 
strongly predominates in this "city on the hill." 

It is sometimes assumed that in a city made up so largely of labor- 
ing people the children are inferior in the matter of intelligence and 
general deportment. However this may be in other localities, it is not 
true in Butte. There are no brighter or better behaved children to be 
found in the entire country east or west, than attend the Butte public 
and private schools. This is chiefly owing to the high character of 
the Butte laboring classes, of their respect for law and order, and their 
desire to see their children become intelligent, self-reliant, and law- 
abiding citizens. 

Taking it all in all, this mountain engirdled city, its striking com- 
bination of elegant homes, imposing business blocks, and public build- 
ings standing side by side with the rude cabin of the olden days, its 
hundreds upon hundreds of mines and smelters with their never ceas- 
ing activities, the wonderful mixtures of nationalities, the public spirit 
of the people, their renowned hospitality and courtesy to strangers, the 
absence of all politics save that which grows out of rival corporate in- 
terests — all these combine to make up a city, modern, aggressive and 
unique, the like of which cannot be found elsewhere, though one travel 
the wide world over. There is but one Butte. 




!*!**fc 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



019 885 271 5 




